When the Delegates came together June 19 they proceeded to put into effect some political agreements that had been reached over the weekend. A commission as Major General was voted Delegate Philip Schuyler, a New York landed proprietor and man of business who had seen service in the war of 1754-63 and had been active in the Colonial cause—in many respects the northern counterpart of Washington. The other command as Major General was awarded to Israel Putnam of Connecticut, a picturesque, little-schooled representative of the New England small farmers who were rallying to the Colonial cause.
When Washington had been assigned these principal lieutenants, he received instructions to cover his journey to Massachusetts, his assumption of command, his discretionary powers, and the steps he should take to organize, recruit and supply the Army. He was authorized to make brevet appointments of colonels and of officers below that rank until vacancies were filled by the Colony from which the troops and their commanders came. June 21 witnessed the choice of eight Brigadier Generals. Three of these were from Massachusetts, Seth Pomeroy, William Heath and John Thomas, and two from Connecticut, David Wooster and Joseph Spencer. New Hampshire was honored by the commissioning of John Sullivan; Rhode Island was credited with Nathanael Greene. An Irish resident of New York, Richard Montgomery, completed the list. Washington’s sense of justice made him wait hopefully to see what qualities these men possessed. By his restrained attitude towards this delicate business of appointments and by his other dealings with Congress, he increased as a General the good opinion he had won as a Delegate. Once the members had made him their choice, they instinctively became his champion in order to justify them-selves. Thus did Washington have the initial advantage, if no more than that, on the fields in front of Boston to which he had now to proceed. Two able young Philadelphians, Thomas Mifflin and Joseph Reed, agreed to go with him temporarily as members of his staff. Charles Lee and Schuyler were making ready to depart on the twenty-third with their Commander-in-Chief. Soon Washington completed his meetings with Congress or its committees on the compelling questions that had to be settled before his departure. Neither he nor the New England leaders felt he could wait in Philadelphia to deal directly with small issues when his presence with the troops in Massachusetts was required.
It was an interesting cavalcade. Washington’s immediate attendants, Mifflin and Reed, were attractive young men of charming manners. Reed, thirty-four, was of distinguished courtesy and accustomed to dealing with men in high station. Because he had seen something of the world and was a skillful writer as well as a man of high intelligence, Washington was gratified to have him as military secretary and as a conspicuous member of the Headquarters “family.” This was true, also, of Mifflin, who was ranked as aide-de-camp. Mifflin had wealth, position and much felicity in speechmaking. Lee and Schuyler had training to complement his own as a soldier and as a purveyor to the needs of fighting men in the field. The escort of some of the foremost young men of the Quaker City, the detachment of the Philadelphia Light Horse under Captain Markoe, seemed altogether appropriate.
A committee of the New York Provincial Congress met them at Newark during the forenoon of the twenty-fifth and announced among other things, that Gov. William Tryon, an uncompromising Loyalist, was returning to New York and had sent word that he would disembark that day. The King’s Governor and the Congress’ General to land in the divided town the same day—the oddness of it had humor and presented manifest danger. It was not a pleasing prospect but certainly not one over which Washington would hesitate. Washington and his cavalcade made their way to the ferry. For his first appearance in New York as American Commander-in-Chief, Washington put on a new purple sash with his blue uniform, and laid aside his travel hat for one that bore a fine plume. Philadelphia’s generous reception and grateful farewell were small affairs when set against this welcome that awaited him and Lee and Schuyler.
It was about four o’clock Sunday afternoon that Washington stepped ashore, shook hands with the officials and acknowledged the huzzas. He proceeded from the landing and, after more introductions, accepted Col. Leonard Lispenard’s invitation to dinner. Something besides savory viands awaited him. Excited members of the Provincial Congress told him that an express had arrived with a number of papers, among which was a letter to the President of the Continental Congress from the corresponding body in Massachusetts. It doubtless contained news of the battle of Bunker Hill, of which Washington had heard a sketchy account before leaving Philadelphia. Washington hesitated to break the seal of a communication addressed to the presiding officer of the body to which he was responsible, but the paper might contain facts that would be of value on the journey ahead of him. Reluctantly he took the letter from the express. The battle of the seventeenth was described in some detail. The number of Americans killed and missing was supposed to be about sixty or seventy, and the former President of the Provincial Congress, Dr. Joseph Warren, was among the victims. One report put casualties among the ministerial troops at one thousand, “but,” said the Massachusetts legislators honestly, “this account exceeds every other estimation.” Washington knew that casualty lists usually are to be corrected by adding to one’s own losses and subtracting from those of the enemy; but even if the final figures were half as favorable as the first estimates, Americans could stand up against British regulars. An ominous note followed the report of the battle: “As soon as an estimate can be made of public and private stocks of gunpowder in this Colony, it shall be transmitted without delay, which we are well assured will be small, and by no means adequate to the exigence of our case.” Powder shortage! It had been known, deplored and discussed in Philadelphia, but it had not been relieved and now was a threat to the defence of an army which had earned by its valor the right to protect itself and the Colonial cause.
Washington’s sense of duty prompted him to spur on towards Boston, but at the moment he had to consider the instructions he was to give Schuyler, for that officer was to remain as commander in New York. Washington requested Schuyler to report to Congress and to him as frequently as developments required. Orders could not be explicit or restrictive: “Your own good sense must govern in all matters not particularly pointed out,” Washington said, “as I do not wish to circumscribe you within narrow limits.” In his first orders Washington thus abdicated the right of a Commander-in-Chief to have every decision of importance made at his Headquarters. Distance itself vested discretion. Schuyler could operate independently when, in his judgment, such a course was expedient. Washington would advise and perhaps could supervise; he could not direct or administer, and he neither would try nor would pretend to do so.
The next morning Washington was told that William Morris and Isaac Low wished, on behalf of the Provincial Congress, to present him an address. The General was anxious to start for Boston, but he could not decline this civility. Meantime, he directed his companions to have everything ready for departure as soon as the ceremonies were concluded. At the designated hour the members of the Congress waited on him with an address diplomatically fashioned to attest their devotion to the continental cause without giving unendurable offence to those who feared military rule in America and still hoped for reconciliation with England. Washington had his answer ready. His reply included a note of clear simplicity that reassured: “When we assumed the soldier we did not lay aside the citizen.” The words, widely circulated, came to represent Washington in the eyes of many Americans.
Washington’s whole impulse was to put on to Boston. Boston was “the front,” Boston the place where, if anywhere, success might produce an honorable settlement, without the acute agony and ruinous cost of a long struggle. Even if that contest was unavoidable, the camps around Boston must be the training school of victory. The sooner the start, the earlier the ending.
The ride to Springfield June 30 put Washington in touch for the first time with men who were sharing as Massachusetts legislators in the contest with the British in Boston. Dr. Benjamin Church and Moses Gill presented themselves as a committee named by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts to receive the Generals “with every mark of respect due to their exalted characters and stations.” These hosts explained that the Massachusetts Congress had directed that gentlemen of the larger towns on the road to Cambridge serve as an escort to the new Commander-in-Chief and his second. That prospect was equivalent to lengthening the highway to the besieged city, but there was no avoiding what manifestly was meant to be honor and courtesy.
With Church and Gill and a number of the leading men of Springfield, Washington rode July 1 to Brookfield, where his escort was changed, and thence to Worcester, where the same thing happened. From Worcester the next stage was to Marlborough. July 2 he covered early the distance to Watertown. The Provincial Congress was holding its sessions there and the week previously had named a committee to prepare for the reception of the General. At the head of the committee was the President of the body, James Warren. The entire Congress gave him a grateful welcome and presented him an address that was cordial in spirit and honest in warning the General he would not find “such regularity and discipline” in the Army as he might expect.
Then Washington was able to start on the last stretch of his journey, the three miles to Cambridge. There he was conducted to the residence of Pres. Samuel Langdon of Harvard where, he was advised, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had given orders that he and General Lee were to have all the rooms, except one allotted Langdon. Washington met the officers who already had assembled or who called as soon as they heard of his arrival. Conspicuous among them was Artemas Ward, in general command. Another was Israel Putnam. As Putnam had been the choice of Congress for one of the commissions as Major General, Washington thought it appropriate to hand him the formal paper that attested his rank. Some incident of the meeting brought Washington a first, unpleasant surprise: It was manifest that the seniority prescribed by Congress for the New England Generals did not accord with the opinion the leaders had formed of the relative merits of those commanders. Soon he learned that Seth Pomeroy, for whom he had a brigadier’s commission, had left the Army because of disappointment. Another new Brigadier, Joseph Spencer, was said to be angry because Putnam, whom he had outranked in the service of Connecticut, had been given a higher continental commission. This was not the last or the most embarrassing case. Dr. John Thomas was regarded as one of the best officers of Massachusetts, but in ignorance of existing seniority Congress had made him a Brigadier and had listed him as junior to William Heath and Pomeroy, both of whom he had outranked in Massachusetts service. Washington was immediately on the alert. Quarrels must not divide the leadership of the Army on which the vindication of the Colonial cause depended.
Washington rode out in the company of Putnam, Lee and other officers in the afternoon for a view of the fortifications. In a short time the horsemen covered the three-quarters of a mile to Prospect Hill. Washington had almost immediately in front of him at a little more than a quarter of a mile an excellent gun position his guides called Cobble Hill. Across a wide millpond was Bunker Hill where he could see British sentinels. Below their post and under Breed’s Hill were the ruins of Charlestown, which had been set afire and almost consumed in the fighting of June 17. The entire Charlestown Peninsula was British ground, isolated and easily defended, except perhaps against night raids by men in boats. Southeastward he could see a considerable part of Boston, distant about two miles. Beyond Boston, in the fine harbor, were the ships of the British fleet. The waters in which the vessels were riding could be swept by the naval guns. Two miles and a half from the eastern rim of Boston, Castle Island had its armament and its garrison. Thus land and harbor were commanded by the King’s long arm, his cannon. Washington saw at a glance that the redoubts prepared by the Americans were feeble and in several instances badly placed, but he could observe, also, that some of the positions were strong naturally. With vigor and good engineering, he could hope to confine the British to Boston and the hills above Charlestown. By choosing advantageous ground for batteries he might discourage landings from the fleet. Together, these possibilities shaped his first mission: He must bottle up the British while he trained his Army.
Transfer of command by Ward on July 3 was more or less formal, but did not impress itself on witnesses as ceremonious. Morning General Orders, the first issued by Washington, included a call for a “return” of the troops to ascertain immediately the number of men under his direct command and the strength of the different regiments. Along with their returns, the colonels were to file a statement of the ammunition in the hands of their men. To Washington’s annoyance he found that the returns could not be supplied that day, but he had a satisfying report on powder: The store was 308 barrels, or roughly sixteen tons. For the moment, as the shortage of powder would not be serious, Washington could devote his energies primarily to strengthening the fortifications. Not a day must be lost in making the defences as nearly impregnable as they could be in the hands of inexperienced troops.
Washington rode over the ground, examined the works, and had his first glance at the Colonial troops around Roxbury, two Connecticut and nine Massachusetts Regiments. The discipline of none of these was good, by professional standards. Arms were poor and of every age and type; many men were almost naked because they had lost their clothing at Bunker Hill and had not received that which the Provincial Congress had voted them. Many officers did not know their duties or how to do them. Washington was tolerant and was resolved to be patient because he knew the human material out of which the Army and its command had to be created.
Washington took up his administrative duties vigorously and with his usual regard for detail. Warren and Joseph Hawley, leading members of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, believed they had found a way of righting the wrong they thought Congress had done General Thomas when the Philadelphia lawmakers had put Pomeroy and Heath ahead of Thomas in continental service. The inactive Pomeroy was a hundred miles away. If the Commander-in-Chief found it consistent with his instructions to withhold Pomeroy’s commission until he could hear from Congress, they would try to prevail on Heath to acquiesce in the restoration of Thomas’s seniority. Washington had no objection to this and realized that it would be desirable to give seniority to Thomas if that officer was as good as Massachusetts leaders said he was.
This affair out of his way, Washington could devote himself to fundamental needs of the Army that were plainer every day, secure fortification, accurate intelligence, the discipline of understanding minds and the strength of good organization. Cover and training both might soon be imperative, because Gen. Thomas Gage’s men gave every indication of a purpose to attack somewhere on the American defences. Washington had first to build up his Army defensively but he saw at the same time an opportunity of using his extended works as a cordon to intercept the supply of the British in Boston from the surrounding country. If the summer’s campaign would end the war, then he had no greater duty than that of confining the British, hungry and helpless, in Boston.
Discipline, order and sound organization could not wait on the raising of parapets to the required height. Washington set out to train the troops to make their numbers count to the fullest. During the first days that fortification and discipline were being improved, Washington was calling for returns of the strength of the Army. He was told that from 18,000 to 20,000 men were on the lines, but nobody could speak with certainty. He fretted over the delay in compiling figures he thought every regimental commander would have had at hand. As delivered on July 9, the returns were alarming. Washington found only about 16,600 enlisted men and NCOs, of whom the rank and file, present for duty, fit, numbered 13,743 foot. The artillery were listed as 585.
Effective strength was so much below estimates that it raised immediately a question larger than any that Washington ever had been called upon to answer: Should these half-trained and poorly disciplined Colonials attempt to continue the siege and to invite attack, or for safety’s sake should they retire beyond the range of the British heavy guns? Washington determined immediately to refer it to a council of war and, regardless of his Generals’ advice on the question of siege or withdrawal, to proceed at once, by every legitimate means, to get more men into the Army. The answer of the council was that the Army must continue the siege, and must offer the sternest resistance it could in event the British made a sally.
If the Army was to stand in front of Boston, it must stand on the A-B-Cs of war: it must be thoroughly disiplined, well organized, ceaselessly vigilant and numerically stronger. To this basic policy, after the council of war, Washington returned even more positively than ever. He stressed it in his initial dispatch to the President of Congress. The one cheerful passage in a realistic report was that “there are materials for a good army, a great number of men able bodied, active, zealous in the cause and of unquestionable courage.” At Headquarters there were other encouraging conditions. Gates assumed his duties as Adjutant General, greatly to the relief of Washington. When the Massachusetts Provincial Congress learned that the President’s house at Harvard was not altogether adequate as Headquarters, it directed the Committee of Safety to place at Washington’s disposal and at Lee’s any other dwelling that suited them. As a result, the two Generals transferred Headquarters to the house of John Vassall, who had gone to Boston when the Colonials occupied Cambridge.
Another encouragement was a new turn in the case of General Spencer. After that Connecticut commander had taken offence at the appointment of Putnam over him, he had left his quarters on July 6 without leave from the new Commander-in-Chief, and he either inspired or else said nothing to prevent a written protest on July 5 by forty-nine of his officers. The effect was to bring Spencer into general disfavor. In the end, he had the good sense to swallow his pride and return on July 18, at the rank assigned him by the Continental Congress. This relieved Washington of a delicate situation which he had not created and could not himself correct. Wooster’s discontent persisted; Pomeroy might perhaps be disregarded; if Thomas could be reconciled to the rank given him or could be made the senior Brigadier, then jealousies of this nature might cease for the time to threaten the cause of the Colonies. Washington deferred action temporarily, but Congress promptly voted to make Thomas senior Brigadier, vice Pomeroy. To remove all ground of future difference, the Delegates stipulated that Thomas’s commission bear the same date as Pomeroy’s. If this displeased Heath, he made no formal protest and by his silence let the controversy end. Washington could mark off his list of difficulties the “great dissatisfaction” with the appointments of general officers. Not till this was past did he admit the full seriousness of the danger he thought the controversy carried. Then he confided to Philip Schuyler that because of the incompetence and clashes among the officers, “confusion and disorder reigned in every department, which in a little time must have ended either in the separation of the army or fatal contests with one another.”
Washington proceeded to battle with mounting duties and, in particular, to execute a plan for dividing the Army into three “Grand Divisions” of two brigades each. Ward was named to command the right, with the brigades of Thomas and Spencer. The central Grand Division, lacking as yet an organized second brigade, was to be Putnam’s. Its existing brigade, in which Putnam had been ranking officer, was entrusted to its senior colonel. On the left were the brigades of Sullivan and Greene, with Lee in general command. A Judge Advocate General was named to organize the work of the military courts; similarly, a Commissary General was appointed in the person of Joseph Trumbull. Many articles required for the camps would be crude, and some were unprocurable in a region deprived of imports; but Washington found he could count on everything the New England Colonies could supply.
Abatement of jealousies over rank, first steps in organization and discipline, the progress of fortification, the support of the New England Colonies—all these were facilitated by hearty acceptation of Washington as a man of character and a leader of judgment and resolution. In the Bay Colony as in Pennsylvania, he was credited with so great a fortune that his willingness to risk it in the Colonial cause bred confidence in him. Henry Knox told his wife: “General Washington fills his place with vast ease and dignity, and dispenses happiness around him.” Abigail Adams assured her husband: “You had prepared me to entertain a favorable opinion of General Washington, but I thought the half was not told me. Dignity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and soldier, look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face.”
Washington was fortunate, more than fortunate, in his adversary. Bunker Hill had shaken both the strength and the confidence of the British. Although some of the officers around Charlestown expressed special confidence in Gen. William Howe, they had respect for American marksmanship and resentment of the Colonials’ vigilance. The British delayed the attack Washington expected. On July 8 some of General Thomas’s men surprised the guard at an advanced post on the Roxbury line and destroyed the dwelling and barn there. On the twenty-fifth three men-of-war and six transports sailed out of Boston and disappeared on a raid on the smaller islands of Long Island Sound.
Indications multiplied that the enemy might be preparing to break the siege. On the night of the twenty-ninth, two patrols were sent out to capture a prisoner and ascertain what was happening at Charlestown. The patrols crept forward and were about to join forces when they ran into the British relief guard and had an exchange of fire. Two British prisoners were taken without loss. This brush led to scattered fire along the line and two small actions. On the thirtieth, the British demonstrated on Boston Neck and west of Bunker Hill. Late in the night of July 30/31, a British party advanced towards Roxbury but failed to gain surprise because a deserter had slipped ahead and given warning. An American force of three hundred landed that same night on the island where the British were repairing the Light House. The object was to stop the work and capture the carpenters and a guard of thirty-two marines under a subaltern. American success was complete.
These activities might forecast major attack. The American commander knew that a fleet of transports had brought reenforcements to Boston, and he had learned that these consisted of four regiments, “a miserable relief,” as one British officer put it. Washington’s estimate of the total strength of the British was 10,000 to 12,000, admirably equipped in every particular, with good artillery. The effectiveness of this force was increased vastly by its ability to concentrate at almost any point in superior numbers.
Washington never let himself forget that British advantage. He increasingly suspected that the British would begin heavy bombardment of the American lines in the hope of driving the troops from them. He scarcely could hope to answer this fire because he did not have the powder for such an exchange, even though nothing had occurred during July to reduce materially the stock of 308 barrels he had been told was in store. In any event, cartridges must be issued the men. As the continental stock amounted to 35,000 only, appeal was made forthwith to the Massachusetts authorities to furnish the remainder from their store. Elbridge Gerry replied that the supply of the Bay Colony amounted to no more than thirty-six barrels of powder. Thirty-six barrels? Impossible. What did the troops of the other Colonies have? Their total was about fifty-four barrels. Thirty-six and fifty-four—ninety barrels or 9900 pounds. Was that all? Absolutely! When the return had been made after Washington’s arrival, the men who gave the General the figure of 308 barrels had included all the powder that had been collected—what had been fired as well as what remained. If the British attacked, the Army had barely powder enough to issue each man nine cartridges. One brisk action might render the Army defenceless: it must not be!
The next day brought reports that eighty thousand flints and eight tons of lead were in transit to the Army and that “fifteen hogsheads of powder” had been received in New York and would be reported to the Commander-in-Chief; but “reports” were one thing and deliveries quite another. Washington had to be miserly with every grain of explosive the Army possessed, and he had to call for every pound left in New England, without being at liberty to tell the people how overwhelming was the need. Unless there was the tightest secrecy, the British would hear of the Colonials’ plight. Faced with that prospect the Army must stop wasting cartridges. Every man’s ammunition was to be examined at evening roll call. Those soldiers who were short of their allotment were to be confined. The Governors must be acquainted with the essentials. The next step was to report the stark danger to the President of the Continental Congress. This was done as briefly as might be, with the stern conclusion: “I need not enlarge on our melancholy situation. It is sufficient to say that the existence of the Army and salvation of the country depends upon something being done for our relief both speedy and effectual and that our situation be kept a profound secret.”
How could desperate danger be abated? Within approximately a week after the discovery of the critical shortage, Washington received an answer of unexpected nature: From Philadelphia under date of August 1, Richard Henry Lee wrote that Congress had adjourned for approximately a month. “The capital object of powder,” Lee said, “we have attended to as far as we could by sending you the other day six tons, and tomorrow we shall propose sending you six or eight tons more, which, with the supplies you may get from Connecticut, and such further ones from here, as future expected importations may furnish, will I hope enable you to do all that this powerful article can in good hands accomplish.”
Arrival of this supply before an attack by the British would give the Continentals a fighting chance. The odds against the Army no longer would be hopeless. Eagerly Washington traced the progress of the wagons with the powder and learned that if all went well, they would draw up in his camp on the sixteenth. The promised supply would not give the Army more than 184 barrels, or a bare thirty cartridges per man; but that would be a condition at least three times better than the one that had existed. It would raise the spirits of the men, too. Besides, the arrival of the powder would be heartening proof that Congress had been mindful of the Army and energetic in seeking supplies.
Congress was not the only contributor to the magazines. The powder it collected in Philadelphia was supplemented by lead that Schuyler, on order, forwarded from Ticonderoga. Gov. Nicholas Cooke, of Rhode Island, likewise purchased for the army seven thousand pounds of powder, seventy hundredweight of lead and five hundred stand of arms. Soon two additional tons of powder were sent from Philadelphia. Gradually the situation was being changed to the extent that instead of dreading an attack, Washington was to lament the fact that his supply still did not suffice for him to take full advantage of his positions.
Washington still hoped against hope that the war would be concluded in 1775 and that peace would be restored. What he could not understand was why the British withheld the blow that might decide the campaign. Was Gage preparing by regular approaches to force the Americans from their lines; or were the British counting winter as an ally before whose blasts the Army would scatter? Could there be truth to the rumor that the King’s men would use their seapower and transfer the war to New York, where the waters of the Hudson and the northern lakes might give them contact with their comrades in Canada?
For such light as could be shed on these questions, Washington undertook to develop a rough-and-ready intelligence system that had been established before his arrival. Chelsea, north of the approaches to Boston harbor, was an ideal place from which to observe movements of British shipping. After Washington’s coming, Col. Loammi Baldwin was made responsible there and at Maiden for daily intelligence reports. Besides the results of Baldwin’s observation, much of fact and more of rumor was supplied at Chelsea, in Cambridge and at Roxbury by Boston residents who were passed through the lines in spite of orders to the contrary. Almost a full history of what happened in the city could be pieced together, in time, from questioning those General Gage authorized to leave the town in order to reduce the consumption of food there. Of the deserters, another traditional and unreliable source of intelligence, a few knew much; others knew or would tell nothing.
Washington steadfastly refused to detach any large part of his Army to serve as garrison or combat raids, even though he told himself that he would “be accused of inattention to the public service and perhaps with want of spirit to prosecute it.” He continued securing his positions and improving his organization and discipline. It was not enough to be safe against attack; he must place his guns where he could answer the enemy’s bombardment as soon as he had the powder with which to do so.
On the northwestern flank of the American lines was an eminence known as Plowed Hill. This elevation did not obstruct in the least the American fire from Prospect Hill or that of the British from Bunker Hill, but there were rumors that the British intended to seize it in order to command the low ground between that eminence and Bunker Hill. It was ground worth fighting for. Washington resolved to seize and fortify it. Colonial troops moved out to Plowed Hill on the night of August 26 and threw up so much earth that when daylight came they had cover against enemy fire. The British cannon slumbered until 9 A.M. but when they did wake up, they barked all day, though with little hurt to the Americans. For making the fortifications proof against this fire, Charles Lee was given credit. Washington was pleased and at the same time was distressed because he could not expend the powder required to answer the British effectively.
Organization must progress along with fortification while Washington waited either for the enemy to attack or for the coming of powder with which to seize the initiative. The commissioning of Thomas as senior Brigadier on the Boston front and the return of General Spencer had put an end, apparently, to what one officer described as “uneasiness in camp.” Further down the scale of rank, men had been granted Continental commissions without inquiry into their fitness. Washington had to deal vigorously with the inevitable result of this bad system and, in particular, with the inertia of ignorance. One remedy, he thought, was in naming officers from other Colonies, now that the Army was continental. A second means of improving the quality of officers was for Congress to keep open a number of commissions as rewards of merit. Still another was that of setting an example of what an officer should be. On occasion, too, as when Col. William Woodford of Virginia wrote for his advice on the duties of an officer, Washington could put on paper some of the essentials of his code of command: “Be strict in your discipline; that is, to require nothing unreasonable of your officers and men, but see that whatever is required be punctually complied with. Reward and punish every man according to his merit, without partiality or prejudice; hear his complaints; if well founded, redress them; if otherwise, discourage them in order to prevent frivolous ones. Discourage vice in every shape, and impress upon the mind of every man, from the first to the lowest, the importance of the cause, and what it is they are contending for.” In applying this to his immediate subordinates, Washington undertook to see that their rights were not disregarded, that their seniority was established and respected, and that they were treated as individuals and gentlemen. The rotating officer of the day, the officer of the guard and the adjutant of the day, no matter who they might be, had standing invitation to dine at Headquarters: Washington was resolved, having done what he could in ridding the officers’ corps of cowards, rascals and incompetents, to acquaint himself thoroughly with the others and develop their good qualities.
Washington could not always find men equipped to fulfill the ideal he set before Colonel Woodford, but he selected them with care from the class he thought most conscious of obligation and best qualified to meet his special needs. He made Thomas Mifflin Quartermaster General with rank of Colonel; he approved the best brigade majors he could procure, and after a bit of finessing in avoiding political appointments, he named Edmund Randolph and George Baylor as aides. Both were Virginians and both of the upper stratum of the Colony’s society.
While improving the organization of his officers during the time he was awaiting Gage’s attack, Washington continued his efforts to make the troops comfortable and healthy and to better their discipline. This second task was rendered more difficult by the arrival in camp of rifle companies recruited in accordance with a resolution Congress adopted June 14. The idealized argument for companies of this type had been compressed by Richard Henry Lee into a few clauses when he wrote of these men’s “amazing hardihood, their method of living so long in the woods without carrying provisions with them, the exceeding quickness with which they can march to distant parts and above all, the dexterity to which they have arrived in the use of the rifle gun.” Lee added almost with awe: “There is not one of these men who wish a distance less than 200 yards or a larger object than an orange—Every shot is fatal.” Washington wanted some of them; he probably did not desire too large a contingent. When they began to arrive late in July, everyone marvelled at the speed with which the men had enlisted, settled their affairs at home and covered on foot the hundreds of miles to Boston. The very first comers showed a marksmanship that taught the British to keep their heads below the nearer parapets, but the anticipated deficiency soon was apparent: These riflemen had no such word as “discipline” in their vocabulary. They saw one duty and one only; that was to kill the British. Whenever they saw a “Lobster,” as the Americans now styled the Redcoat, they would take a shot at him even if he was within the very farthest range of their rifles. The result was much wastage of powder and no increase in British casualties.
There were many matters in which the members of his staff could be of service to the General. This was increasingly true of Reed, whom James Warren described as “a man of sense, politeness and abilities for business.” Gates was similarly useful and soundly versed in military affairs. The Adjutant General was operating as smoothly as could be expected with men still inexperienced in military usages. The Army was improving. If it was not yet good, it was less bad by far than it was at the beginning of July. The General doubtless would have been reluctant to have his men attempt, as yet, to stand up against the British in the open field; but, assuming that powder and ball sufficed in quantity, he would not be afraid to meet a British attack—if only the British would come out and assault American positions.
That continuing uncertainty was worse than all the remaining woes and perplexities of the Army put together. Suppose Gage still refused to attack as autumn brought warning of the long months when sentries might freeze at their posts and the tents of the camp be deep in snow. Winter quarters would be required, and they would have to be built with much labor and cost. Besides, virtually all the enlistments had been to December 7 or to the end of 1775; what would happen then?
Whatever had to be done, Washington would do. If winter quarters had to be provided, all the buildings of Harvard College that could must be closed in; those officers who were erecting board-covered retreats must allow them to be occupied by as many persons as could be accommodated. The Commissary General must formulate plans for feeding the men.
Washington cast aside his theory that his strategical task simply was to confine the British to Boston. He reflected on the possibilities, deliberated with Massachusetts lawmakers and Congressional Delegates on vacation, and decided to undertake three things: First, now that he had stopped all deliveries to Boston by land, he would arm some coastal vessels and try to cut off the supplies that were reaching the British by sea. Second, he would attempt to give help to Schuyler, if the New York commander was able to formulate a plan for the early invasion of Canada. Third, he would himself deliver with his Army a direct attack of some sort on Boston.
The effort at sea had to be made with armed schooners by some of the numerous mariners in the regiments from the coastal towns. Nicholson Broughton was appointed Captain in the Army and was directed to proceed with the armed schooner Hannah to capture, if he could, any craft laden with men, arms, ammunition or provisions inward or outward bound from Boston.
Plans for a diversion in Canada were now considered. They had probably originated in reports that the British had few troops in the region wrested from France and that the native population was still hostile to the Redcoats. Washington learned that there was a route by which he could cooperate with Schuyler in attacking in Canada. The previous spring Col. Jonathan Brewer had offered to follow this trail and, if five hundred men were assigned him, make a demonstration against Quebec. His proposal was to move troops up the Kennebec River to a carrying place opposite a stretch of Dead River, then west on that stream to its headwaters near Lake Megantic and thence northward again down the Claudière to the St. Lawrence almost directly opposite Quebec. The advance up the Kennebec and down the Chaudière would force the British commander in Canada, Gen. Sir Guy Carleton, “either to break up and follow this party to Quebec,” by which Carleton would leave Schuyler’s approach on Montreal unopposed, or else to “suffer that important place, [Quebec] to fall into our hands, an event which would have a decisive effect and influence on the public interests.” Washington regarded the detachment of a small column to Canada as a risk worth taking. The essentials were, first, to be certain Schuyler was going to advance in the general direction of Montreal; second, to procure the necessary batteaux for the ascent of the rivers; and, third, to find an able man to lead the expedition.
Washington lost no time in ascertaining whether General Schuyler intended to move north. He outlined the plan in an urgent letter of August 20, which he sent express to his New York comrade, and in it he admitted that much of success depended on the response of the Canadians themselves. Schuyler was prompt to reply. He expressed his agreement with Washington’s proposals and gave assurance that Gen. Richard Montgomery was making ready to leave Ticonderoga for Canada. He would join his Brigadier at Crown Point, Schuyler said, but he would not have in the two columns more than 1700 men. These would be too few to employ against Quebec after necessary detachments had been left at the places he would undertake to seize. Then he said: “Should the detachment of your body penetrate into Canada, and we meet with success, Quebec must inevitably fall into our hands. Should we meet with a repulse, which can only happen from foul play in the Canadians, I shall have an opportunity to inform your party of it, that they may carry into execution any orders you may give, in case such an unfortunate event should arise.”
Washington felt a measure of confidence about the enterprise, first, because he was reassured concerning the attitude of the Canadians and the Indians, second, because everyone said the route of the Kennebec-Claudière was practicable, and, third, because he believed the limitations of transport and supply could be overcome by the man he now selected to lead the expedition. This was Benedict Arnold. For his exploit in seizing Ticonderoga with Ethan Allen May 10, 1775, Arnold had received much applause and had proceeded to the head of Lake Champlain where he had destroyed Fort St. John. Then had followed an ugly succession of quarrels over command of a pitifully equipped little force to which four Colonies and the Continental Congress were contributing meagrely. Arnold had wished to attack Canada without delay, but his violence and the stubbornness of his rivals had paralyzed effort. At length, when he was told to recognize the seniority of his most persistent rival, Col. Benjamin Hinman, he resigned his Massachusetts command, dismissed his men and, before many weeks, appeared at Watertown for the settlement of his accounts. He had boldness, energy and ambition of a sort that would not permit him to be unoccupied in wartime and soon presented himself to Washington. Washington quickly saw that Arnold was furnished with much of the stuff that must be in a man called to head a swiftly moving expedition that was to fight water and wind and winter. Besides, as a trader, Arnold had been to Quebec and probably knew more about the town and the approaches to it than did any officer of Washington’s immediate command. Arnold could get there! He must start his march before the summer slipped away.
Washington’s discussions with Arnold and others led him to conclude that the force should consist of the equivalent of a battalion, and that three companies of riflemen should be provided—roughly 1100 men altogether. Washington apportioned the footmen among the regiments, pro rata, with the understanding that volunteers would be accepted at a parade on September 6. The riflemen were chosen by lot and as units—William Hendricks’ Cumberland County Pennsylvanians, Matthew Smith’s riflemen from Lancaster County in the same Colony, and Daniel Morgan’s Virginians. For service with these riflemen, many volunteers were forthcoming; preparations were hurried to begin the march by September 13; a resounding address to the people of Canada was completed in Washington’s name and translated into French. Washington told Arnold: “Upon your conduct and courage and that of the officers and soldiers detached on this expedition, not only the success of the present enterprise, and your own honor, but the safety and welfare of the whole continent may depend.” Arnold rolled the drums as soon as the different parts of his force could take the road to Newburyport.
On September 11—the very day Arnold’s men were put under marching orders—Washington met with the eight members of his council of war. He wished to know whether his Generals believed an offensive for a dual attack up the “Neck” from Roxbury and by boats from other parts of the front should be taken in hand. Lee believed an attack should be delivered. His fellow-commanders voiced concern. Boston Neck was too narrow, the officers maintained, and the approaches by water too much exposed to give the Colonials a decent chance of success. Other argument was political and hung on the hope—indeed, on the expectation—that the ministry of Lord North would fall and friends of America come into power. No word had been received of the King’s action on the appeal of the Continental Congress; but news probably had arrived of the “Humble Address, Remonstrance and Petition” which the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Livery of London had adopted on June 24 and were seeking to present to the Monarch. This paper called on the King to dismiss his present ministers and advisers, dissolve Parliament, and put his future confidence in servants whose attachment to the constitution, when joined to the King’s own wisdom and integrity, “may enable your Majesty to settle this alarming dispute upon the sure, honorable and lasting foundations of general liberty.” Colonials who read this would conclude, not unnaturally, that even if the King ignored the appeal of the Continental Congress, he certainly must consent to receive and answer the address of the most powerful single body of his subjects. In the light of this, an attack on Boston well might be delayed, but “unanimously” was not precisely the word for rejection of the plan. Lee doubted; Washington at heart dissented. “I cannot say,” he told Congress, “that I have wholly laid it aside.”
MAP / 8
THE INVASION OF CANADA, 1775-1776
For a fortnight and longer, after Arnold’s volunteers marched away, there was spiteful dispute by the artillery, but nothing that indicated preparation by the British for an immediate attack. The British made ten shots or more for every one from an American cannon, because Washington demanded unrelaxed care to prevent the wastage of powder. Each grain was guarded as if it were a coin in the last treasure of America. Some additional powder arrived at the camp, but almost as much went out of the store as ammunition for the men. The feeling grew in Washington’s mind that if powder could be had, the enemy could be driven from Boston; but, meantime, angry artillerists had to endure the annoyance of British fire and shivering sentinels had to be clothed. The work of constructing barracks was pressed, though not at a speed to equal the evidences that the need would be early and inclusive. Weather, rather than slow-handed workmen, was responsible for most of the delay in building winter quarters. The soldiers themselves were not laggard.
Washington, as everyone else, was unprepared for what developed at the end of September when Brig. Gen. Nathanael Greene called at Headquarters and asked to see the Commander-in-Chief privately. He entered with another man, Godfrey Wainwood, a baker of Newport, Rhode Island, and handed Washington a letter that Wainwood had brought from Henry Ward, Secretary of that Colony. Ward’s letter and Wainwood’s statement had to do with a woman who had come to Wainwood’s house in Newport early in August and, on the basis of previous acquaintance in Boston, had asked him to arrange for her to see Capt. James Wallace of H.M.S. Rose, or the Royal Collector, Charles Dudley, or George Rome, a known Tory, who was a rich merchant and shipowner. The manner of the woman led the baker to wonder if she might not have some secret communication to make to a Loyalist. Wainwood at length got from her an admission that she had received in Cambridge a letter she was to deliver to one or another of the men she had named in order that it might be forwarded to Boston. Finally, the woman acceded to Wainwood’s suggestion that she entrust to him the letter, which he said he would deliver at first opportunity. She disappeared and presumably went back to Cambridge. Wainwood related the circumstances to a Newport schoolmaster named Maxwell, a stout supporter of the Colonial cause. Without hesitation, Maxwell broke the seal and opened the communication. It was to no purpose that he scrutinized the sheet, because the letter was written in strange characters and was completely unintelligible. Maxwell gave the paper back to Wainwood, who put it away again and troubled himself no more about it until, days later, the woman wrote him in much trepidation.
Wainwood was a man of native shrewdness and concluded that the person who had employed the mysterious cipher had been in communication with the addressee in Boston and had learned that the letter had not been received. He went to Maxwell, told him what had occurred and agreed that the two of them would proceed to Providence and report the circumstances to Ward.
So, there they were, Greene and Wainwood, with the letter the woman had sent the baker and with the cryptogram she had left with him earlier. Who was the woman? Wainwood gave her name and confided that she was a female of easy virtue with whom he had consorted in Boston before the war. Washington gave orders that search be made for her. That evening she was brought to Headquarters but was obdurate. The next day she was worn to the point where she could resist no longer: the man who had given her the letter to carry to Newport was Dr. Benjamin Church.
Dr. Church? The Director General of the Hospitals, a leader in the Massachusetts Congress and a member of the Boston delegation, along with Samuel Adams and John Hancock in the new House of Representatives? Could it be possible that a man so distinguished for public service, one of those sent to Springfield to escort Washington and Lee to Watertown, could be engaged in a correspondence that certainly was clandestine and suspicious and probably was traitorous?
In a few hours the Doctor appeared under guard and submitted to questioning. Yes, the letter was his and was intended for his brother, Fleming Church, who was in Boston. When deciphered, the Doctor said, the document would be found to contain nothing criminal. He accompanied this with protestations of loyalty to the Colonies, but he did not offer to put his letter in plain English. Nor did he explain why he had said nothing of the correspondence to any person but the woman who, it eventuated, Church had been keeping as his mistress.
Church must be put under surveillance; the letter must be deciphered. The key was found easily. By October 3 Washington received the deciphered document. The letter evidently was to a person with whom Church previously had conducted a correspondence. The Doctor recorded his own movements, told of a visit to Philadelphia, described the strength and equipment of the Colonial forces, mentioned a plan for commissioning privateers, and stated that an army would be raised in the Middle Colonies to take possession of Canada. The letter concluded with elaborate instructions concerning the dispatch of an answer. The last sentence was, “Make use of every precaution or I perish.” In Washington’s eyes, Church was in traitorous communication with the enemy. His sense of justice did not protest for an instant against the verdict of his military judgment.
Procedure was another matter and one concerning which Washington was not certain. He felt the need of advice and convened a council. Grimly he informed the general officers of the discovery of Church’s activities and laid before them the text of the letter. The other Generals, like Washington, were stunned and unable at the moment, to reach any other decision than that they should summon Church and judge for themselves. Church was brought before the Generals October 4 and was confronted again with the deciphered text of the letter: did he acknowledge it? Church did not hesitate. He had written the letter; it was deciphered properly; he had penned it deliberately in the hope he might deter ministerial forces from attacking at a time when the Army’s supply of ammunition was low.
The argument was unconvincing. Dr. Church was taken from the room still declaiming about his loyalty to the American cause, and Washington asked the members of his council for their judgment. Unanimously they were of opinion that Church had carried on a criminal correspondence. What, then, should be done with him; what did the Army regulations prescribe? The offence was one so little contemplated that none of the officers was quite certain of the punishment. A search of the regulations adopted by Congress in June disclosed an odd provision: Under Article XXVIII, a person communicating with the enemy was to suffer such punishment as a general court-martial should mete out; but under Article LI, it was disputable whether a military court was authorized in such a case to impose any penalty heavier than that of cashiering, a fine of two months’ pay, or thirty-nine lashes. Apparently the Delegates in Philadelphia had not considered carefully the limitations set to the authority of courtsmartial. This penalty was absurdly unfitted to the crime. There was nothing the council could do except have Washington call the attention of Congress to the inadequacy. Pending further instructions from the Delegates in Philadelphia, Church must be confined closely and denied all visitors except those who had the General’s permission.
Washington remained determined to have the man punished. He saw to it that Church was kept in confinement to await the judgment of Congress and also of the Massachusetts Assembly, which could act independently on the treason of one of its members. Church was sent for custody to a Connecticut jail “without the use of pen, ink or paper, to be conversed with in the presence of a magistrate only, and in the English language.”
Word reached the Americans, in the midst of the excitement over Dr. Church, that General Gage had been ordered home and that Maj. Gen. William Howe had been named to act in Gage’s absence as head of the armed forces in that part of America. The change was one to justify the conclusion that Gage had been recalled because he had been too cautious, too discreet in using his forces or, perhaps the vainglorious might say, too much afraid of the Colonials to take the offensive against them. Beyond this, there was no ground for rejoicing over the transfer of command. On the contrary, Washington might well have reasoned that he was exchanging an adversary he knew for one with whom he was unacquainted, except as Howe had shown fighting spirit at Bunker Hill.
At the beginning of the third week in October, with the camps buzzing over Church’s arrest and the recall of “Blundering Tom,” as the men styled Gage, it was too early to expect important news from Arnold; but barracks had to be built and ceaseless vigilance displayed, and the possible break-up of the Army had to be faced. The enlistments of the Connecticut and Rhode Island troops would terminate December 1; none of the men from other New England Colonies had covenanted to remain in service beyond the end of 1775; the riflemen, in the main, would be subject to martial law until July 1. If the majority of the foot soldiers reenlisted, the ranks might be filled by vigorous recruiting; but if most of the men marched off, how were they to be replaced?
Congress wished to know what number of men would suffice for a winter campaign? Could soldiers’ pay be reduced? Of what should the ration consist? Were further regulations necessary for the Army? To these questions Washington added several of his own and, in particular, one concerning the term of future enlistments. The General was notified from Philadelphia that a committee of Congress would come immediately to Headquarters to confer with him. To the meetings Washington was directed to invite representatives from the legislatures of the New England Colonies and the Governors of those Colonies that had such officials. This arrangement was acceptable to Washington in both its parts and not the less so because of the members chosen for the committee of Congress: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Lynch, and Washington’s friend Benjamin Harrison of Virginia.
When the committeemen reached Cambridge, October 15, Washington had ready for them the advice of his council of war on the questions of organization, pay, rations and the like; but in the absence of the President of the Congress of New Hampshire the committee waited before beginning discussion of subjects that seemed to grow in intricacy and in number. The time was not lost. Among the instructions given by Congress to the committee’s members was one that they declare the sense of the Congress respecting an attack on the troops at Boston: If before the last of December Washington should think it practicable it will be advisable to make attack upon the first favorable occasion and before the arrival of British reen-forcements; if the troops did not suffice, Washington should be authorized to call in as many minutemen as he thought proper. Washington felt that he should resubmit the question to his senior officers. He called them together October 18 and told them that he had “an intimation from the Congress that an attack upon Boston, if practicable, was much desired.” Not one of the eight believed it feasible.
The committee met with Washington that same day and before it took up matters of administration requested the officers of the Connecticut regiments to ascertain how many of their men were willing to remain in service until the other troops finished their enlistment at the end of December—a necessary first step in determining what strength would be at Washington’s disposal during the last month of the year. The conference accepted the council’s figure of 20,372 as the minimum strength of the new Army, and proceeded to deliberate on what should be done if reenlistments did not reach that total. The decision was to encourage in every way general continuance in service, to look to individual officers to fill their own ranks and, if all else failed, to summon the militia.
Optimistic early reports indicated that most of the officers would be willing to remain with the Army through 1776 and many beyond that date; but detailed reports soon led Washington to doubt whether more than one-half, or at maximum, two-thirds of the company officers would promise to stand by the colors to December 31, 1776. Whether the Connecticut private soldiers would agree to remain until the expiration of the enlistment of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire troops on the last day of December was a subject of sharp division of opinion. Many officers thought the greater number of the troops would stay to the year’s end if, meantime, the men could go home on furlough, see their families, and get winter clothing. Unhappy knowledge that even the warmest coats would not protect the men from cold was a special consideration with the committee in urging the utmost speed in ascertaining the sentiment of the soldiers. If the men were doubtful about committing themselves while autumn weather lingered, they almost certainly would insist on leaving, if they could, when December had frozen the fields and sent paralyzing chill into unfinished barracks.
Actual polling of the rank and file of the Connecticut regiments was disheartening. “After breakfast,” one Lieutenant of the Eighth wrote, “we called out the company and made a trial to see who would stay in the service till the 1st of January, but not a man would engage.” If this was typical, the Army would be dangerously weak in December, after the Connecticut men went home. During that month, moreover, a new force must be created. The least difficult situation that Washington could anticipate, in short, was that of having thirty-one days in which to muster out one army and replace it with another while in the presence of the enemy.
Would it be possible to reduce that danger by attacking the British? Twice a council of war had decided against an offensive by the Americans. The approach of winter suggested something that had not previously been mentioned in Washington’s reports to Congress: Suppose the harbor of Boston were frozen so tightly that the British warships could not maneuver; suppose sufficient powder and long-range cannon were collected at suitable positions; could the city be bombarded so heavily that the British would be forced to surrender? If this was possible, would it be humane? Should the people of Boston have death that America might have liberty? These were questions for common counsel. On the last day of the conference, October 24, Washington reviewed what had been said about attacking Boston. The matter, the committee said, was of “too much importance to be determined by them”; they would refer it to Congress on their return to Philadelphia.
What the bombardment of a town of wooden houses might involve, commander and Congressmen learned in sickening detail while they were discussing future operations. Washington received from an intelligent Boston refugee a report that a considerable squadron, including two transports that could provide quarters for a total of six hundred men, was to have sailed from that port October 4—a warning that was passed on, as soon as possible, to most of the coastal towns. The squadron was delayed, but on the thirteenth it was standing out to sea. Nothing more was heard of it until the twenty-fourth, when the three members of Congress were catching up the last loose ends of their instructions. On October 16 four British vessels had appeared off Falmouth under the command of Capt. Henry Mowat. After much bluster, warning, futile negotiation and demand for cannon and hostages, Mowat’s ships opened fire on the eighteenth. The town was set afire and the greater part of the prosperous place destroyed—139 dwellings and 287 other structures. Captain Mowat was alleged to have orders to burn all the seacoast towns between Boston and Halifax. The lesson of Falmouth could be applied in Boston. With proper artillery, Boston could be destroyed if that was the only way of driving the enemy out—a different plan, most certainly, from Washington’s expectation in July that his prime duty would be to confine the enemy to Boston.
Hopeful impatience mounted for news of Arnold. About October 4, Washington had received a letter written by Arnold September 25 announcing that he had reached the Kennebec River promptly, September 20, but that he had found some of the batteaux so poorly constructed he had felt it necessary to build others. While this delayed his general advance, he had sent forward two reconnaissance parties and was following with two other “divisions.” Col. Roger Enos was to bring up the rear. After that report, Washington received none from Arnold for days. The General comforted himself with recollection of one explicit order he had given Arnold: If anything went amiss, Arnold was to notify him by express. For a time, Washington was equally apprehensive of delay in Schuyler’s expedition against Montreal, because the New York commander continued to report obstacles that were vexatious and dangerous. Gen. Richard Montgomery was pushing toward St. John’s and Fort Chambly but, said Schuyler, he himself was beset by many difficulties. During the first week of November, Schuyler reported that Montgomery had captured Chambly with its garrison of eighty men, 124 barrels of gunpowder and 125 stand of British arms on October 20. Within three or four days, Washington received a dispatch that Arnold had written October 13 at the second portage from the Kennebec to Dead River. Arnold expressed the hope that the worst of his difficulties were behind and that he would reach the Chaudière River within eight or ten days. Washington was immensely relieved. He wrote of Arnold on November 8: “I think he is in Quebec. If I hear nothing more of him in five days, I shall be sure of it.” Five days of silence followed, but on the sixth day good tidings from Schuyler arrived: St. John’s on the Richelieu River had fallen to the Americans. So fine an achievement presaged the isolation and almost certain fall of Montreal. Montgomery had done his part well. If Arnold matched him, Quebec as well as Montreal would be wrested from Britain.
Five days more and then, on the nineteenth, more news, incredible news: There arrived from Arnold another dispatch, dated at Chaudière Pool, not at Quebec, and forwarded by Colonel Enos. The heading and opening words of Colonel Enos’s own explanatory letter were enough to make the eyes bulge and the blood run to the face:
Brunswick, near Kennebeck, November 9, 1775
Sir: I am on my return from Colonel Arnold’s detachment. . . .
Enos went on to relate how, as he had advanced, Arnold had sent back for provisions with which to feed the men in front. Enos had forwarded what he could and then had decided that he should turn back with his three companies because, if he went on, the provisions of all would give out before supplies could be had from the French settlements on the Chaudière. Retreat seemed desertion of Arnold. Arnold’s letter appeared to make the withdrawal all the more infamous. Arnold had been much impeded by heavy rains. Provisions were short; Colonel Enos and Col. Christopher Greene had been directed to bring forward no more men than they could supply with fifteen days’ rations. Although the route was far worse than Arnold had been told to expect, he would press on and would get provisions. Indications pointed to a welcome by the French in Canada; reports were that few troops, if any, were stationed at Quebec.
Surely a man who wrote in that spirit should have the support of the last musket even if the rearguard had to march and fight on an empty stomach. So Washington reasoned from Arnold’s letter and from that of Enos. Washington assumed that when Arnold’s advance became known, General Carleton could be expected to bring together at Quebec the British forces that had survived the fall of Chambly and of St. John’s and the expected occupation of Montreal by Montgomery. The task of Arnold now would be much more difficult than it would have been if, with Enos’s men in support, he had reached the vicinity of Quebec a fortnight earlier. In spite of this ill fortune Washington did not despair of the success of the resolute man who had ascended the Kennebec.
Anxiety over Arnold’s plight was deepened by hourly concern over reenlistments and barrack-construction. Another and serious problem was procurement of powder and artillery for operations against Boston. Washington decided to extend his earthworks beyond Plowed Hill more than halfway to Bunker Hill from the dominating ground of Winter Hill. As far as the Commander-in-Chief could foresee, he would not have to pay too high a price for Cobble Hill, an excellent position three-quarters of a mile south of Plowed Hill and slightly less than that southwest of Bunker Hill. The three positions were a triangle with the apex to the east, a circumstance that some day might make it possible to direct a converging fire on Bunker Hill. If Cobble Hill was to be taken, it had to be at once, because the ground was freezing fast and deep. Whether the British would be content to let the Americans hold this ground must be ascertained by the new move. Howe might conclude that a stop had to be put to the gradual shortening of the range. It seemed much like trying to tighten a noose around the neck of the enemy, but the experience at Plowed Hill was duplicated incredibly. Under Washington’s own eye, high parapets were thrown up on the night of November 22/23 and were undisturbed by the British for days.
Thus many things seemed to be shaping to a climax, when Colonel Enos returned to Cambridge with his three companies. Washington put him under arrest and ordered a court of inquiry under the presidency of Charles Lee to sit on November 28. During the evening of the day on which the order for the court was issued, the twenty-seventh, an express from General Montgomery brought tidings of the unopposed occupation of Montreal on the morning of the thirteenth. General Carleton got away with his troops and his powder, but when Montgomery wrote, at Montreal, he was hopeful he could capture the explosive. Almost as important was a paragraph that began: “By intercepted letters, I find Colonel Arnold is certainly arrived in the neighborhood of Quebec; that the King’s friends are exceedingly alarmed, and expect to be besieged, which, with the blessing of God, they shall be, if the severe season holds off, and I can prevail on the troops to accompany me.”
There was fine news from the sea, also. Washington received during the second week of October word of the departure from England, August 11, of “two north country built brigs of no force,” laden with arms, powder and other stores for Quebec. These vessels were proceeding without convoy. Washington must undertake to send out armed craft and capture the immensely valuable prizes. Many delays had been encountered, but two vessels had left port October 21, and the armed schooner Lee, Capt. John Manley, had sailed from Plymouth November 4. Manley had the initiative and the good fortune to recapture a schooner, laden with wood, that a British prize crew was carrying into Boston. Now, November 27, Washington received intelligence that the diligent Captain had brought to Cape Anne an infinitely richer prize, the large brig Nancy, believed to be one of the vessels of which word had been sent from England. Almost before the handshaking over the good news was ended, Washington ordered four companies to Cape Anne, gave authority for the impressment of teams to haul away the stores and directed the minutemen of the adjoining country to assist in removing the cargo to a place of safety. As the men went about this task, every lift from the hold of the Nancy seemed to bring a military treasure into daylight. When he saw her papers, Gates exclaimed that he could not have made out a better invoice if he had tried. Although she carried no powder, she yielded two thousand stand of small arms, many flints, tons of musket shot and a fine brass mortar with a maw of thirteen inches and a weight in excess of 2700 pounds.
When this giant was brought to Cambridge, General Putnam was to christen it with a bottle of rum and Colonel Mifflin was to name it “Congress”; but before that festive celebration, many things happened. First among them was the assembly of the court of inquiry in Enos’s case. Contrary to Washington’s expectation, by no means all the testimony was adverse. There was doubt, in fact, whether Enos had not helped Arnold by sending forward all the supplies he could spare, instead of marching ahead to add more mouths to those already exhausting Arnold’s provisions. The court was somewhat reluctant to recommend action in the light of the evidence, but it concluded that a formal trial was necessary “for the satisfaction of the world,” as it said, and for Colonel Enos’s “own honor.” Washington accordingly ordered a court-martial with John Sullivan as President.
Washington thus far had endured without flinching all the venality, all the incompetence and all the ignorance of war with which he had been confronted, but he had to face the prospect that if the long-desired British attack was delivered, it might be at the most unwelcome time conceivable, the freezing days when the Connecticut troops would be marching home. In writing Joseph Reed of this and of some skirmishing around Lechmere Point, he explained that “a scoundrel from Marblehead, a man of property,” had gone to Howe, told of the reluctance of Continentals to reenlist and assured the British commander that the ministerial forces easily might make themselves master of the American lines. Washington undertook to counter. He began a bomb battery at Lechmere Point on the night of November 29/30. He could not tell whether this activity would serve its immediate purpose in deterring the British, but he confided to Reed that the Army expected an attack. What more perfect time for it could there be? In his months in command Washington had watched with growing repugnance the cunning of the place-hunters and sensed the acuteness of a danger the slothful disregarded. He had had to struggle with himself to keep his patience and his faith. To Reed he broke out:
Such a dearth of public spirit, and want of virtue, such stock-jobbing and fertility in all the low arts to obtain advantages of one kind or another in this great change of the military arrangement, I never saw before, and pray God I may never be witness to again. What will be the ultimate end of these maneuvers is beyond my scan. I tremble at the prospect. We have been till this time enlisting about three thousand, five hundred men. To engage these I have been obliged to allow furloughs as far as fifty men a Regiment, and the officers, I am persuaded, indulge as many more. The Connecticut troops will not be prevailed upon to stay longer than their term (saving those who have enlisted for the next campaign and mostly on furlough), and such a dirty, mercenary spirit pervades the whole that I should not be at all surprised at any disaster that may happen. In short, after the last of this month our lines will be so weakened that the minutemen and militia must be called in for their defence. . . .
He rushed angrily on:
. . . these [men], being under no kind of government themselves, will destroy the little subordination I have been laboring to establish, and run me into one evil whilst I am endeavoring to avoid another; but the lesser evil must be chosen. Could I have foreseen what I have, and am likely to experience, no consideration upon earth should have induced me to accept this command. A Regiment or any subordinate department would be accompanied with ten times the satisfaction, and perhaps the honor.
Washington’s information on November 29 was that at least 1500 men were absent on furlough as a reward for reenlistment and that the force with which he had been defending his lines thus was reduced by almost 12 per cent. The report was, also, that the Connecticut troops absolutely could not be induced to continue in service beyond the first of the month. Something had to be done; the situation was critical; delay was dangerous. He summoned a council for the next morning. At the council, the grim-faced seniors could give no encouragement: the Connecticut troops stood fast in their resolution; pleas and argument alike were vain; patriotism no longer stirred them. They must be replaced at Continental expense with minutemen from other Colonies until January 15, 1776, by which date the new Army would be organized or the American cause hopeless.
Again on December 1 the Connecticut companies were addressed by their officers and asked to keep their faces towards the enemy until other soldiers took their places. The report was the same: Unless they were given extra pay, most of the men were resolved to go home, regardless of what happened. When some actually started, that was more than Washington would endure. He sent after the men; apprehended most of them, brought them back and sternly warned them not to leave until they received their formal, written discharges. At the same time, he put all the troops on the alert and undertook to make the camps as secure as possible. The certain loss of the Connecticut regiments within ten days put an attack on the British so far beyond reach that Washington scarcely need spend thought on it. He had in candor to tell himself there was no reason for expecting the troops from the other Colonies to do any better, when their enlistments ended, than the Connecticut soldiers had done. He could not believe that voluntary enlistment would bring the Army to the accepted maximum—20,372.
After the departing Connecticut troops were brought back, they did their duty for several days without complaint. No mutiny swept the camps; the sentinels gave no indication of any preparation for an assault; December 3 passed without alarm, a movement of troops to Charlestown on the fourth amounted to nothing. The fifth was quiet. Routine was restored in the Army. The court-martial acquitted Colonel Enos “with honor,” a verdict that Washington accompanied, on publication, with an order for immediate release from arrest and with no other comment.
Washington received on December 4 a dispatch from Schuyler, dated November 22, that contained letters of Montgomery and of Arnold. Montgomery reported that American artillery fire had kept Carleton and his men from moving on their ships down the St. Lawrence, and past the mouth of the Richelieu to Quebec. Arnold wrote at St. Mary’s. He told of his purpose to cross the St. Lawrence in a few days and to attack the city, though he feared it might have been reenforced. If it was too strong for him, he would march to join Montgomery at Montreal. The natives seemed friendly and willing to supply provisions. This was encouraging and led Washington to hope that Montgomery’s early juncture with Arnold not only would assure the capture of Quebec but also would complete the conquest of Canada.
Some of the Connecticut troops refused on the tenth to perform any military duty and at least passively demanded that they be allowed to start home at once. Washington again had to refuse, but this time he had an encouraging reason: militia from other New England Colonies were beginning to arrive in noticeable numbers. If they continued to move into the camps, the Connecticut regiments might leave, but not until then. The safety of the lines had to prevail over the letter of old enlistment resolutions. On the eleventh it looked as if a new necessity was developing. Fretful activity was observed around Bunker Hill; large numbers of men moved from their encampments and crossed to Boston by the ferry. Washington concluded that the British either were reconcentrating in the city for an attack at some undisclosed point or were transferring the men to less exposed winter quarters. The more formidable of these alternatives was enough to make Washington ask once again whether Howe might be withholding his attack until the day some secret agent would hurry to British Headquarters and say, in effect, “The rebels are at their weakest now!”
Keep the Connecticut regiments, then—will they, nil they—till a corresponding number of militia filed into the tents and barracks. That, in substance, was the order. Mercifully, the worst of the danger appeared to be over almost before the Connecticut men had time to get angry. The British made no further movement at Bunker Hill or from Boston; militia companies reported with a briskness that surprised the General. The militia came the more readily because they were outraged by the news that the Connecticut troops were going to leave regardless of what happened to Boston. Within a few days it was to be manifest, also, that the leaders of Connecticut and many of the humble folk were humiliated and outraged by the virtual defection of so many of their troops in an hour of peril.
If the uncertainty created by the departure and arrival of these desperately needed troops had not absorbed Washington’s thought on December 11, he might have indulged a different and sentimental resentment. It would have been this: After much exchange of correspondence, long preparation and the muster of a considerable entourage, Martha had started for Cambridge from Virginia and she arrived that day. Her vehicle poured out Virginians as if they had been apples from a barrel—herself, Mrs. Horatio Gates, Jack Custis, his wife and George Lewis. There were, of course, affectionate greetings for Martha and for her fellow-travelers and there was as much of comfort at Headquarters as could be provided by fumbling males; but a man of other temperament might have complained that of all days on which a chivalrous foe and a considerate Army should have left a Commander-in-Chief alone, it would have been when he wished to receive a wife whom he had not seen for seven months.
Behind all other burdens of command was gnawing concern over Arnold’s Canadian expedition and over the course of the reenlistment, a double dread—to darken a Christmas that Nature did her best to brighten. Christmas Eve brought heavy snow, but Christmas Day itself was full of sunshine. Some of the officers came, of course, to call on the General and his lady during the day. In the unfinished barracks and in the crowded houses of the towns the soldiers made such mirth as they might. A few who had money and the courage with which to face untrodden snow went out into the country and bought themselves such fruit and fowl as the farmers had. The enemy, too, kept the peace of the Prince of Peace.
It was altogether a quiet day, but on the roads to Cambridge, two expresses were fighting their way through the snow. One of them came from Fort George with a dispatch from young Henry Knox, whom Washington in November had sent to New York and thence to Ticonderoga to get additional cannon and ammunition. Knox, writing December 17, reported excellent progress on his own account, but he said that Colonel Arnold was obliged to go to Point-aux-Trembles, about six miles from Quebec and that Montgomery had gone to join him and added: “I have very little doubt that General Montgomery has Quebec now in his possession.” That had been Washington’s hope, but his confidence could not be fixed until he learned that Montgomery was with Arnold.
What of opportunity at Boston? The Massachusetts committee for the supply of wood was hinting to the townships of the “great danger the country is exposed to from a dispersion of the Army, which must take place if it is not supplied with wood”; Washington’s concern was whether reenlistment would yield a sufficient force to hold the line at the Year’s End, when those men from the other New England Colonies who would not reenlist for 1776 would leave the Army and go home. By the last returns prior to December 15, not more than 5917, including Connecticut volunteers, had agreed to sign for another year. On December 18, total reenlistments were computed at 7140. The task seemed an impossible one. As the Year’s End came within a bare hundred hours or so, Washington received from the second express who had been on the road at Christmas the answer of Congress to the question the committee of Franklin, Lynch and Harrison had submitted to Philadelphia. The reply was, “Resolved, that if General Washington and his council of war should be of opinion that a successful attack may be made on the troops in Boston, he do it in any manner he may think expedient, notwithstanding the town and property in it may thereby be destroyed.” Here was the authorization: would there be an opening and the men to make the most of it? If Howe was pretending to be cautious in order to deceive the Americans, would there be men to repulse him, or could he sweep aside a thin and shivering line? Amid desperate attempts to prevail on men to stay and fight for their country, the final day of the year came. Present, fit for duty, were 11,752 rank and file. Enlistments of every sort for the new establishment were 9650. Nathanael Greene heard the figures and spoke for his chief and for all his patriotic brother-officers when he wrote: “Nothing but confusion and disorder reign. . . . We never have been so weak as we shall be tomorrow. . . .”
The New Year, 1776, began with so few troops in the redoubts and the barracks that the lines at some points were bare of defenders; but the British did not stir, and Washington issued a long appeal for “order regularity and discipline,” as if he were sure of “the new army, which,” he said, “in every point of view is entirely continental.” All offenses of the old establishment were pardoned; the guardhouse doors were opened for all imprisoned American soldiers; the British union flag was raised as if to honor the birthday of the Army. This was done with an air of confidence, almost of bravado. Washington was far less sure of the morrow than he appeared to be. He told Reed “How it will end, God in his great goodness will direct. I am thankful for his protection to this time. We are told that we shall soon get the army completed, but I have been told so many things which have never come to pass that I distrust everything.”
Two days after Washington had hoisted the union flag “in honor of the United Colonies” the camps received the long-delayed text of the King’s speech to Parliament on October 26. George III then had announced his intention of putting “a speedy end” to what he described as a “rebellious war . . . manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing an independent empire.” The monarch went on to say that he would give “authority to certain persons upon the spot to grant general or particular pardons and indemnities . . . as they shall think fit, and to receive the submission of any Province or Colony which shall be disposed to return to its allegiance.” This evoked nothing but ridicule from Chelsea to Dorchester Neck, but when Boston Tories saw the union flag lifted on the first day of the New Year they assumed that the Americans had put up the flag as a symbol of submission. News of this feeling in the occupied city amused even Washington.
Relief came with laughter. By the evening of January 4 sufficient militia had arrived for the Brigadiers to reoccupy thinly those parts of the line that had been undefended for three days. In another four days the number of men present for duty, fit, was to rise to 10,209, but that was less than half the authorized strength of the Army, and even that figure now might face subtraction because of new developments to which Lee insistently called attention.
Lee had gone to Rhode Island to advise Governor Cooke concerning the defence of the Colony. Upon his return shortly before the beginning of January, Lee was alarmed by reports which indicated that the British in Boston were fitting out a fleet. The objective of this force might be New York and its aim might be not only to seize the most valuable point strategically on the coast but also to rally and recruit Tories, who had made that city their stronghold. New York must be occupied and the Tories curbed—that became Lee’s temporary creed.
Washington as long previously as October had considered the possibility of a British descent on New York and had asked whether he should detach troops, should await instructions, or should rely on the men of that and nearby Colonies to defend the city. No decision by Congress had been communicated to him. Now that a British movement from Boston was in the making, Washington shared Lee’s view that immediate action should be taken and urged that New Jersey troops be thrown into the city. More than this he did not think he should urge, because of his lack of familiarity with conditions in New York. Distance and circumstances had made his position as Commander-in-Chief more nominal than directional. He held the inclusive title; he was not sure he should exercise all the powers his title seemed to confer. Lee made a detailed proposal for the occupation of New York City and the nearby country. The plan appealed to Washington; but he remained in some doubt concerning his authority, and, as John Adams happened to be near at hand, Washington consulted the Congressman. His long experience as a legislator had taught the General that the time to avoid criticism was in advance of action and that the way to do this was to consult and convince those who might be critical later. Washington told Adams that if the plan was to be executed, it should be undertaken at once and by Lee. Adams’s reply was unequivocal: Washington should seize New York; it was entirely within his authority to do so. Specifically, said the Massachusetts leader, “your commission constitutes you commander of all the forces . . . and you are vested with full power and authority to act as you shall think for the good and welfare of the service.”
Lee’s instructions were drafted forthwith. He was to raise volunteers in Connecticut, proceed to New York, get assistance from New Jersey, and put New York City “into the best posture of defence which the season and circumstances will admit of.”
The day after he gave Lee his papers Washington received the first detailed returns of the new Army. He had estimated from incomplete weekly figures that the total would be 10,500, or about 45 per cent of the authorized strength. Now he was appalled to find that actual enlistments were 8212, and that the number of men present for duty, fit, was 5582 only. In the light of these unhappy facts he was so discouraged that he doubted whether the Army ever could be completed by voluntary enlistment. He said so without advocating immediately an alternative policy, though he believed a draft or a bounty for long-term enlistment would be necessary. He had once again to look to the militia. The time of those called to the lines in December would expire January 15. Although Washington’s anxiety prompted him to ask the Massachusetts Legislature to keep these men with the Army until February, his experience admonished him of the old, ugly, fact that a great part of the militia would not extend their service even for two weeks.
Weakened in this way, Washington felt that he should call a council to consider how he could get the men with whom to carry out the plan to which he always returned from every wrestle with adverse circumstance, the plan of attacking Boston or of inducing Howe to come out and fight. Washington asked John Adams and James Warren to attend along with his general officers, and on January 16 he laid before them “a state of the Regiments in the Continental army, the consequent weakness of his lines, and, in his judgment, the indispensable necessity of making a bold attempt to conquer the ministerial troops in Boston, before they can be reenforced in the spring, if the means can be provided, and a favorable opportunity offered, and then [he] desired the opinion of the council thereon.” This time, all the doubters were convinced: the attack should be made as soon as practicable; to facilitate it, Washington should call for thirteen militia regiments to serve from February 1 to the end of March; these regiments should have the same number of officers and men as were authorized for the Continental regiments. Massachusetts must be asked for seven, Connecticut for four, and New Hampshire for two.
The call went out accordingly. What the result of this new application might be, Washington could not foresee; but in the acuteness of his anxiety he opened his heart to his friend Reed: “Could I have foreseen the difficulties which have come upon us; could I have known that such a backwardness would have been discovered in the old soldiers to the service, all the Generals upon earth should not have convinced me of the propriety of delaying an attack upon Boston till this time. When it can now be attempted, I will not undertake to say; but this much I will answer for, that no opportunity can present itself earlier than my wishes.”
Opportunity! The word seemed to be mocked by papers that lay in Washington’s Headquarters as he wrote. He discovered now that, if such a thing was possible, he was even worse off for arms than for soldiers. His long anxiety over the outcome of the advance of Montgomery and Arnold to Quebec was more and more acute. Schuyler had written January 5 that Arnold and Montgomery had formed a junction, “but,” the New Yorker said, “their force is so small and the weather has been so severe that I fear they have not been able to possess themselves of Quebec.” Unhappy and in ill-health, Schuyler had added: “I tremble lest Canada should be lost.” Receipt of this letter deepened Washington’s dread and when, on January 17, he broke the seal of a dispatch written by Schuyler from Albany on the thirteenth, the opening words were so many blows in the face: “I wish I had no occasion to send my dear General this melancholy account. My amiable friend, the gallant Montgomery, is no more; the brave Arnold is wounded; and we have met with a severe check in an unsuccessful attempt on Quebec.” The situation, Schuyler wrote Washington, called for “an immediate reenforcement that is nowhere to be had but from you.”
This news stunned. The invasion of Canada had been ordered by Congress but the cooperation of Arnold through an advance on Quebec had been Washington’s own design, his first adventure in strategy on a scale of any magnitude. It had failed, with heavy loss and with dark potential consequences: If Canada were lost to the Americans, that country would be a secure base for the confident planning of an offensive down the lakes and down the Hudson simultaneously with an attack on New York City by the British fleet and perhaps by Howe’s army. Were this joint operation to succeed, then the Colonies would be divided and might be subdued. As Washington saw it, the question was not one of detaching troops from his command to reenforce Arnold; it was, instead, how could additional soldiers be found elsewhere for the relief of a gallant man and the capture of the enemy’s northern base?
He summoned an immediate council, to which Adams accepted an invitation, and when he had the Generals and the Delegate together in a private room, Washington inquired “whether it proper, in the present circumstances of the lines, to detach a reenforcement from hence to the succor of the troops in Canada?” The senior officers were convinced that this was “improper,” but there was unanimous assent to a proposal Washington made that the New England Colonies be requested to supply men to aid Arnold. As Canada went, the balance might turn; the winter of 1775-76 would be decisive there because, when spring came, the enemy most certainly would send large reenforcements to the St. Lawrence. Washington had more confidence than ever in Arnold, and he hoped that officer, recovering promptly, would add, as he wrote him, “the only link wanting in the great chain of continental union.”
Scarcely had this exhortation been written than Washington found affairs in Canada involved anew and differently with those of New York. During the last week in January he learned that Lee had been halted at Stamford, Connecticut, by an attack of gout and had been confronted there by a strange and disconcerting letter from the Committee of Safety in New York City. The committee told of reports it had received that Lee was about to enter the city with a considerable body of troops, and it informed him that it had little powder and no defensive works. Because of this situation, members felt that hostilities in New York City should not be provoked before March 1, if then. Lee was requested to halt his troops on the western confines of Connecticut “till we shall have been honored by you with such an explanation on this important subject as you may conceive your duty may permit you to enter into with us. . . .” Lee’s letter to Washington enclosed this document and his reply, the substance of which was that his object was to keep the British from taking post in the city or from effecting lodgment on Long Island. “. . . I give you my word,” Lee had written the committee, “that no active service is proposed as you seem to apprehend.” He specified: “If the ships of war are quiet, I shall be quiet; but I declare solemnly that if they make a pretext of my presence to fire on the town the first house set in flames by their guns shall be the funeral pile of some of their best friends—but I believe, sir, the inhabitants may rest in security on this subject.” Further, Lee wrote his chief, he had concluded he would receive instructions from Congress, to which he had written on the subject. The response of Congress was to send a committee of three members—Harrison, Lynch and Andrew Allen—to decide what should be done for the defence of New York.
Before Lee had recovered sufficiently to proceed on his way, his direction of defence at New York for any length of time was put in doubt. At Headquarters it was surmised by some, that Schuyler did not wish to exercise general command in Canada, but Washington thought he might be prevailed upon to accept the responsibility. If the New Yorker did not, then Charles Lee would be the logical man to head the operation. When Washington received a request from Congress that he designate one of his Generals for the Canadian command, he suggested that Lee be left temporarily in New York and that Schuyler be entrusted with the Canadian command.
Soon papers that came to Cambridge told of plans for the dispatch of Lee, rather than of Schuyler, to Canada. Lee was willing, and he was insistent only in asking for the essentials of war most difficult to get in America—trained subordinates, cannon and ammunition. He wished to have either Greene or Sullivan assigned him, but the qualities that made him desire the services of one or the other of them were the very excellencies that led Washington to want both men to remain with the Army in front of Boston. Lee did not insist. He was in good spirits; because his proposal to occupy New York brought him much praise. This aroused no jealousy in Washington’s heart. He wanted Canada, he would part with his most experienced lieutenant were that necessary to get it; he regretted that he could spare no troops to help in the northern province, but he was convinced he could not afford to detach even a battalion.
This unyielding insistence by Washington on concentration of force accorded with his answer to previous appeals for detachments: If Howe did not attack, he would, and to do so he required every man. He needed, too, more powder than ever, and he had relatively less, both because of wastage and because he now had more heavy guns. Knox had arrived at Framingham with fifty-two cannon, nine large mortars and five cohorns, which he had hauled over the snow from Fort Ticonderoga. Washington might hope to drive the British from the wharves of Boston if ever he had in store sufficient powder for a long bombardment.
Artillery was Knox’s assignment and was well handled; transaction of much of the other public business was more difficult now because of changes in Washington’s staff. Edmund Randolph had been compelled to start back to Virginia in November to look after the estate of his uncle, Peyton Randolph, who had died suddenly in October. To Washington’s distress, Joseph Reed had set out for Philadelphia to look after certain cases pending in his law practice. Reed had proved himself so nearly indispensable that Washington had written Richard Henry Lee to endeavor to prevail upon opposing counsel to agree to postpone trials in order that Reed might return promptly to Cambridge. For the discharge of the less important duties of aide, Washington procured the services of Robert Hanson Harrison. Stephen Moylan gave such help as he could, but he had his own regular work to do as Mustermaster General.
February 13 Washington went to Lechmere Point. He found the ice there solid all the way across the channel to Boston. Would it be practicable to attack across the ice and to rely primarily on the fire of small arms? If this bold move was to be undertaken at all, it should be attempted at once, because the ice might break up and British reenforcements might sail into Boston. So, on February 16 Washington submitted his plan to his Generals.
Every man of them was against it. Washington was set back by this counsel. He had reckoned the cost of the long assault over the ice and had agreed that success would depend on the good behavior of the troops, but he had been willing to take the risk because this seemed the one feasible operation for an army that lacked powder for a sustained bombardment. When his Generals were decidedly of opinion that he was wrong, he could not persist in asserting himself right. He did not change his mind but, he admitted subsequently, “the irksomeness of my situation . . . might have inclined me to put more to hazard than was consistent with prudence.” Washington had to turn again to the almost hopeless task of building up a reserve of powder and the enterprise the council had recommended, that of occupying some of the hills of Dorchester Neck in the hope the enemy would attempt to drive the Americans from the high ground. In spite of ice, everything seemed to be proceeding well. The secret reports from Boston were to the effect that the British were putting heavy guns and a quantity of bedding aboard ship. Townsfolk believed Howe was preparing to move to New York or Virginia.
Washington reasoned that Howe might be fashioning a ruse, might actually be about to leave Boston or might be making ready in anticipation of orders to evacuate the city. Speculation on Howe’s designs was not permitted to slow the preparations for the seizure of high ground on Dorchester Neck. As Washington developed his plans for this operation, he gained faith in it.
Time seemed now to run swiftly towards a decision. At all the batteries within easy range of Boston, solid shot and shell were brought forward, and the precious kegs of powder were placed where no moisture could reach them. Nurses were sought; bandages were prepared. Every effort was made to get full information of the enemy and stop passage from the American lines to Boston, but this precaution did not suffice. On February 27 Washington learned of the desertion of a rifleman who of course would disclose to the enemy as much as he knew.
As the extra day of the Leap Year gave place to a cold first of March it was known in the camps, by the soldiers’ own strangely accurate intelligence system, that the Dorchester Heights were to be occupied. By the second engineers had placed a thirteen-inch mortar and a ten-inch at Lechmere Point and a thirteen-inch companion at Lamb’s Dam in Roxbury. The Massachusetts Legislature was sending up militia Washington had asked from the Dorchester area. The bombardment would be started that night:
[General Ward, Roxbury]
Sir: After weighing all circumstances of tide, &c, and considering the hazard of having the posts on Dorchester Neck taken by the enemy, and the evil consequences which would result from it, the gentlemen here are of opinion that we should go on there Monday night [March 4]. I give you this early notice of it, that you may delay no time in preparing for it, as everything here will be got in readiness to cooperate. In haste I am sir, etc.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
For the operation Washington had approximately 14,000 foot soldiers, of whom about 9000 were Continental troops and 5000 militia. Militia of Roxbury and Dorchester could man part of the lines in event the regular defenders had to be moved. Artillerists under Knox were counted at 635. The supply of powder probably amounted to 174 barrels, exclusive of what had been issued for small arms.
On the night of March 2 Abigail Adams, at Braintree, was writing for all New England women when she shaped these words to her husband: “I have been kept in a continual state of anxiety and expectation ever since you left. It has been said, ’tomorrow’ and ’tomorrow’ for this month, but when the dreadful tomorrow will be, I know not.” At that instant, across field and water came the sharp sound of an explosion. It was a cannon shot—that was certain. The house shook; the young wife of John Adams went to the door and listened. Another explosion, another, and another! Word spread mysteriously that this was it; all the remaining militia were to repair to the lines by midnight of Monday. Abigail came back to her writing: “No sleep for me tonight.”
Except as the bombardment indicated that the Americans had seized the initiative, it was a trifle—only eleven shells and thirteen solid shot. The British reply was prompt and lively but was not of a sort to make a quaking militia fearful of instant death. The enemy’s fire inflicted no damage, but two of the Americans’ large-bore mortars at Lechmere Point and one at Roxbury split. Washington’s chief concern was that the enemy had intelligence of the impending attack and might seize Dorchester Heights before the Americans could. Occupation of the high ground must not be delayed. General Thomas was to be in immediate charge; General Ward was to have supervision of everything on his part of the front and now was assured he would get reenforcement of infantry and riflemen.
After a day of diligent preparation, the artillery opened on the night of March 3/4 at 9 P.M. from Cobble Hill, Lechmere Point and Lamb’s Dam. Bombardment did no damage except to the Americans’ pride; on the third shot the brass “Congress” split as shamelessly as the iron mortars had. The British fire was less bad than on the previous night, but it ceased when that of the Americans ended early March 4.
Washington now had come to the day on which occupation of Dorchester Heights was to begin. The auguries were contradictory. “Long Faces,” as the militia were called, continued to put in their appearance, but word came about ten o’clock that British troops were embarking in boats opposite Lechmere Point. Immediately the alarm was sounded, and the American regiments in that district were put under arms and hurried to their posts. Two hours of uncertainty passed. Then Washington heard that the British had given up whatever design they had.
From that time until nightfall everything outwardly was quiet. Around Roxbury teams were assembled, fascines loaded and the men were made ready to march. The entrenching tools were put into carts and barrels filled with stone and sand were lifted into the stoutest vehicles. These barrels were to be rolled down the hills in order to bowl over the Redcoats who delivered the assault. The surgeons met with the Medical Director and received their assignments, hospitals were cleared for the arrival of the wounded, and so with many other details as the clock ticked the crowded minutes. At dusk the bombardment began. The three thousand troops that Thomas had chosen started from Roxbury for the hills on Dorchester Peninsula. American fire now was almost ten times as fast as it had been either of the two previous nights. British artillerists answered as if they knew that this time something serious impended.
The moon was full; the night was mild. About three hundred teams started with their fascines, chandeliers and barrels and as early as 8 P.M. were climbing the nearer hills. The infantry moved in silently; the riflemen spread themselves out along the waterfront. Men who previously had surveyed the ground saw that the dumping was at the proper places. Next was the sad business of cutting down orchards to provide abatis. Washington scarcely could have asked better performance.
Dawn came at last on March 5. Near Cambridge two regiments were mustered for an early march to Roxbury. The alert was ordered all the way around the crude arc of the American lines as far as Chelsea. On Dorchester Heights the men were surprised and proud to observe how much had been accomplished under the curtain of a single night. Six fortifications had been laid out on the higher hills and on the tableland—cover for the flank and rear against fire from the British on Boston Neck. In the first hours of day there was no sign of any assembly of British troops, no activity in the fleet to suggest that men were to be taken aboard. Washington was not deceived. He knew that flood tide would be about noon and that nothing except artillery fire could be expected until the water was high enough to permit the landing of a force on Dorchester Peninsula. Everything indicated that the “Lobsters” would come in with the tide.
The British began cannonade of the new works, then suspended it; they could not elevate their guns to reach the high parapets. With the halt of the enemy’s cannon there were signs of commotion in the town. Late in the forenoon troops could be seen embarking, with their artillery, on small boats that carried them to transports. A few of these vessels thereupon dropped down to anchorages off the Castle. By the time this was done the hours of best opportunity had been lost. The tide was past the flood. Washington’s troops meanwhile were wheeling a larger number of field pieces into their works, and they continued to pile up earth; but they could do no more than that—except to swear that when the Redcoats came they would “give it to them.” During the late afternoon the weather became colder and the wind shifted. By evening a furious storm roared in from the south with a cruelly cold wind and lashing rain. Before darkness settled it was plain that in that full gale man’s implements of wrath were feeble and futile. Washington let no powder be wet in attempted bombardment. When he awoke the next morning the storm was still roaring, but the rain slackened and, by eight o’clock, ceased. The wind remained high and was holding the transports to their anchorage. If there was to be an attack, it could not come by water until the wind dropped. Howe might sally on Boston Neck. Any such attempt must be met with vigilance and prompt fire. Four thousand men were to be held in readiness to cross the river to Boston should the Redcoats stream down the Neck. Work on the fortifications was renewed; at high water the American positions on the Peninsula were to be manned. Conditions were better hourly. Defences on the high ground of Dorchester soon would be so strong that if the British assaulted their troops would be mowed down. If they did not, Nook’s Hill could be occupied by Washington’s men. This done, American cannon would be so close to the town that the wharves of Boston would be untenable.
On the seventh Washington felt the situation sufficiently stabilized to justify dismissal of those militiamen who lived in the area and had brought with them three days’ provisions only. They had done their duty so well that Washington praised and thanked them in both General Orders and the detailed report he wrote that day to Congress. That was not all that a dispatch to the President of Congress should cover. Washington proceeded to review the need of a third major general. The senior in line of promotion was Brigadier General Thomas, who had acquitted himself admirably in Dorchester Neck. Washington of course esteemed Thomas, but, because he knew jealous eyes in Philadelphia might criticize his words, he wrote with restraint: “General Thomas is the first Brigadier, stands fair in point of reputation and is esteemed a brave and good officer.” Then he went on to recommend Col. William Thompson, for advancement to the rank of Brigadier: “. . . as far as I have had an opportunity of judging . . . a good officer and a man of courage. What I have said of these two gentlemen, I conceive to be my duty, at the same time acknowledging whatever promotions are made will be satisfactory to me.”
During those early hours of March 7 work was going briskly on. The fortifications were stronger every hour. One thing only of possible importance had occurred: The British most certainly and unmistakably were moving cannon in Boston. Could it be that they were preparing to abandon the city? There were other vague indications, also, that the Redcoats might be preparing to leave.
Now it was March 8 and just such a day as the seventh, busy but unexciting—until, about 2 P.M., a flag of truce was seen at the British advanced post on Boston Neck. Col. Ebenezer Learned, commanding on that part of the front, went out to meet a man in British uniform and three civilians. The British officer introduced himself as Maj. Henry Bassett of the Tenth Regiment. His companions were Thomas and Jonathan Amory and Peter Johonnot, who produced a letter from the Selectmen of Boston. The flag went back, and the communication was forwarded in haste to Washington.
He took it, glanced at the inscription, broke the seal and began to read:
As his Excellency General Howe is determined to leave the town with the troops under his command, a number of the respectable inhabitants, being very anxious for its preservation and safety, have applied to General Robertson for this purpose, who at their request have communicated the same to his Excellency Genl. Howe, who has assured them that he has no intention of destroying the town, unless the troops under his command are molested during their embarkation or at their departure, by the armed forces without, which declaration he gave Genl. Robertson leave to communicate to the inhabitants; If such an opposition should take place, we have the greatest reason to expect the town will be exposed to entire destruction. As our fears are quieted with regard to Genl. Howe’s intentions, we beg we may have some assurances that so dreadful a calamity may not be brought on by any measures without. As a testimony of the truth of the above, we have signed our names to this paper, carried out by Messrs. Thomas and Jonathan Amory and Peter Johonnot, who have at the earnest entreaties of the inhabitants, through the Lt. Governor, solicited a flag of truce for this purpose.
JOHN SCOLLAY, TIMOTHY NEWELL, THOMAS MARSHALL, SAMUEL AUSTIN
If there was exultation, it was momentary, because Washington had to decide what answer he would make to a paper which appeared “under covert, unauthorized and addressed to nobody.” The largest instant question was whether Howe himself stood behind a proposal to abandon the city if he were permitted to sail away unmolested and “with the honors of war.” Those general officers unoccupied and near at hand were asked to come to Headquarters and were shown the Selectmen’s letter. Washington found his Generals distrusted any proposal for a bargain. Caution was the first law of conduct where treachery was possible. Washington should acknowledge the letter, point out that it covered no written pledge by Howe, and reserve all the rights of war. A letter for the signature of Colonel Learned was drafted to that effect.
On the morning of the ninth the Americans laid out on Nook’s Hill, in plain view of the British, the work they proposed to construct that night. They paid for their imprudence! No sooner did they start work after darkness fell than shells fell also, and precisely where the Americans were to put their fascines and raise their parapets. The undertaking was abandoned for the night. The fire of the British was the heaviest against any of the new American positions and might indicate that Howe had resolved to stay in Boston. Washington did not so interpret it. All the shot came from the narrow, near arc of British gun positions, a fact which indicated that cannon from the other redoubts had been put aboard ship. Besides, there was as much bustle as ever in the town and on the wharves. Washington concluded that the British were not ready to leave and that they repelled him because they knew he could force them to abandon the Massachusetts capital as soon as he secured artillery positions on Nook’s Hill.
Events of March 10 seemed to vindicate Washington’s judgment. A great stir was visible at the landing-places of Boston. Soon one ship after another raised sail and dropped down the harbor. This was a signal for Washington’s troops to move out from Roxbury and man their positions on Dorchester Heights, but no indications of a landing were observed. Nor was there any perceptible change on March 11. Boston yielded the same picture of preparations for general departure of army and fleet. While expectancy remained and some anxiety lingered in Washington’s mind, he was now more confident of the outcome and talked with Boston refugees concerning the occupation of the town as if he were certain of the complete departure of the British.
The waiting was exasperating. If and when Howe sailed, where would he head? Was Halifax or New York the destination of the fleet? The American General held to the belief that the objective was the mouth of the Hudson and brought his general officers together on the thirteenth to ask their judgment on the number of troops he should send to New York and the time when it would be safe to start the movement. The advice of his council was that he could begin the transfer immediately but that he ought not to dispatch any men besides the rifle companies and one brigade until the British actually had left Boston. Plans were made accordingly.
To reduce risk of having the mouth of the Hudson virtually undefended when the British arrived, Washington appealed to Governor Trumbull to send two thousand men to New York. From Jersey one thousand were to be sought. It was better to prevent a lodgment at New York than to have the task of ousting an adversary already entrenched there.
March 15 was the eighth day after the receipt of the Selectmen’s announcement of the impending departure of Howe—and the British still held Boston. The wind was favorable for the departure of the British but they loitered still. Then before the fifteenth ended, the wind shifted so adversely that the King’s men could not leave if they would. Washington felt that he had nothing further to gain by delaying longer the fortification of Nook’s Hill. Once the British saw his battery planted there, they must leave Boston or take the risks of a short-range bombardment. Up the hill, then, the men were ordered to go on the night of March 16/17. British artillery challenged the workers as it had on the ninth, but no American had been hurt when, at daylight, the workers could see the fruits of their labor and, at a distance, the effect on their adversary. The wind was from the quarter favorable for departure; the wharves were thronged with men in uniform. Troops could be seen to enter boats and start in great numbers for the vessels that were riding comfortably at anchor below the Castle. Word came that troops in large number were marching away from Bunker Hill.
Had all the British left the town? For many minutes there was doubt. Then, from in front of the outposts on Boston Neck, sentinels heard the shouts of American boys. The British were all gone, the lads cried; Selectmen were on their way to Roxbury. Soon, down the Neck came Austin, Scollay, Marshall and others, who were hurried to General Ward’s quarters. When their tale was told, Ward gave his orders: Colonel Learned was to select five hundred men who had experienced smallpox and with this force and two companies of artillery was to enter Boston.
Washington showed no elation over an event he long had anticipated. He ordered Sullivan to occupy Charlestown while Putnam collected men who could enter Boston without fear of smallpox. It was done with enthusiasm and alacrity. Ward’s force of five hundred proceeded to the British outpost and then to the advanced line, where Colonel Learned ceremoniously unbarred and opened the gates on the main road. Nowhere did they encounter British soldiers, but there was abundant work for “Old Put” in locating and salvaging the public property, cannon, small arms and weapons the British left behind.
Washington did not indulge himself in a triumphant entry. He had too much to do and had to ask himself once again a question to which he gave the same convinced answer: Howe’s objective certainly was southward, Washington thought, and most probably was New York. The troops that had been delayed in their departure for the mouth of the Hudson could now be dispatched. Such was the end of the most encouraging day Washington had spent after he had assumed command at Cambridge eight and a half months previously. He had forced the Redcoats to evacuate Boston almost without loss of American life. There was one regret, one doubt only: The British fleet had not actually gone to sea. Vessels that had sailed from Boston prior to the seventeenth were in Nantasket Road; the transports that had left Boston on St. Patrick’s Day were riding between the Castle and the Light House.
They were close, dangerously close, and they still were there the next morning, March 18. As Washington could do nothing against the fleet, he took time to visit Boston and view for himself the damage that had been wrought. Several of the churches had been stripped of their pews and turned into riding schools; numerous old wooden buildings had been torn down for firewood; the stores around the wharves had been looted of groceries which had been dumped in the filthy streets. Strangely, none of the possessions of John Hancock had been disturbed. “The town,” Washington wrote, “although it has suffered greatly, is not in so bad a state as I expected to find it.” Washington was much impressed by the fortifications. Boston, he subsequently wrote, was “amazingly strong . . . almost impregnable, every avenue fortified.” On Boston Neck, where the defences were much stronger and better built than elsewhere, the works were complete and of a sort to evoke the admiring praise of the captors. The heavy cannon had been spiked but so carelessly that some were quickly cleared again. Miscellaneous ordnance stores, almost the whole of the British medical supplies, a stock of three thousand blankets and much equipment were found on the wharves.
Washington was so suspicious because of the enemy’s continued presence in Nantasket Road that he ordered immediately the construction of a strong work on Fort Hill, a dominant position. As the parapet rose fast, while the enemy remained close at hand, Washington’s state of mind was one of disappointment and misgiving. On the night of March 19/20 the British demolished the defences at the Castle and blew up buildings that could not readily be burned. The enemy made some efforts, also, to block the channels. If, as seems logical, these were the acts of a commander who was abandoning Boston, why did he not proceed to Halifax, as his men had told Boston people he intended to do; and if Howe was going, instead, to New York or Long Island, as Washington still believed, what deterred him from gaining the advantage of early arrival? Washington started Heath and a brigade of foot for New York on the twentieth; but more men than this he did not think he ought to detach until he could ascertain what the British intended. If ever they started for New York—Washington saw clearly his duty. New York, he told Governor Cooke, who feared for the safety of Rhode Island, “secures the free and only communication between the Northern and Southern Colonies, which will be entirely cut off by their possessing it, and give them the command of Hudson’s River and an easy pass into Canada. . . .” This made it “absolutely and indispensably necessary for the whole of this army, which is but inconsiderable . . . to be marched from hence for defence with all possible expedition.” Barring direct invasion, no part of the Army could be detached to Rhode Island, and no more troops would be left in Boston than were required to give the town protection against surprise attack.
The British should go to New York if their strategy was intelligent: why did they linger, and why, in particular, when the wind was favorable? Six additional American Regiments were made ready for the road. Days dragged anxiously on. On the twenty-seventh, a day when the waters of Massachusetts Bay were running high, and a fair wind with the promise of spring in its breath was blowing steadily, Washington had much to do. All business had been transacted, dinner had been eaten, the end of the day was at hand, the twenty-fifth day after the opening gun on Dorchester Heights—when a messenger drew rein at Headquarters. He brought news, the news: That morning at eleven, the flagship Fowey had hoisted signal; at 3 P.M., the fleet had made sail from Nantasket. Now the whole of it, except for three or four vessels, was standing out to sea.
“General Howe has a grand maneuvre in view or has made an inglorious retreat”—that was Washington’s comment, and it was accompanied almost in the same breath by orders for the dispatch of additional troops to New York. Washington continued to believe the strategic importance of New York so great that he was not justified in delaying the march to that city of all his Army except regiments needed to garrison Boston. On arrival in New York, the whole force was to be under the command of General Putnam till Washington moved Headquarters there. Washington transacted business as fast as he could get it before him. To regular matters were added the vexatious details of moving nine or ten thousand men; and on this were superimposed the ceremonials of congratulation and farewell.
The Massachusetts Assembly presented Washington an address on March 28 which praised his achievements as if the man who had wrought the deliverance of Boston was assured a place among the immortals. A few days later he received from the Selectmen of Boston a brief, laudatory address, which pleased him almost as much as the paper from the General Court. Harvard, in its turn, voted him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, but delays in preparing the diploma prevented its delivery.
Had Washington in the last days of March reviewed his conduct of this first campaign, he would have told himself, as an honest-minded man, that he had somewhat underestimated the effective strength of Howe and overestimated the mobility of the Boston forces at sea and on land. A positive mistake, perhaps the most serious Washington made, was the dispatch of Arnold’s small, ill-equipped and poorly provisioned force over a wilderness route concerning which information was inadequate and inaccurate. He appears to have exaggerated what one thousand men could do in that savage country. Daring sometimes could defy men, but it could not disregard nature. The other mistake, that of not seizing Dorchester Heights earlier, was it really a mistake? If Howe or Gage had taken a chance of securing the high ground of the peninsula, Washington might have been forced to buy it in blood or to deliver his assault under great disadvantage up narrow Boston Neck. When the British failed to occupy the elevations that overlooked the town, then Washington doubtless reasoned that he could not afford to do so prior to March, because that would have inspired a British attack which he might not be able to beat off with the powder he had. His apparent lack of aggressiveness was lack of powder.
Washington’s mistakes had been few and explicable; his shortcomings—the negative as set against the positive—had been more numerous. He had not shown any large skill or any sense of direct responsibility for the enlistment of men. He had devoted too much of his own time to “paper work.” A third shortcoming, primarily attributable to distance, was his virtual failure to exercise the full functions of Commander-in-Chief. Washington had a realistic and probably a correct sense of the fundamental strategy of New England and of New York, but he had not demonstrated he could supervise all the plays on the continental chessboard.
Washington had demonstrated that he knew how to make an army out of a congeries of jealous contingents, and he had learned while he had been teaching. He had studied gunnery in the track of the missiles and now he had sufficient acquaintance with that arm to know what he could not expect artillery to do. This self-instruction was acquired while his youthful chief of artillery, Henry Knox, was getting mastery of the cannon. General and Colonel must have gained knowledge together by conversation and test. It was different with Washington’s adherence to the great fundamental of concentration of force, and different, too, with that categorical imperative of American defence—sea power. Much was taught Washington and, through him, his country, by his observation of what a few American ships in the hands of courageous men had done in cutting off supplies from Boston, but, basically, he seemed to have from the beginning of the campaign a correct understanding of the larger principles of naval warfare and of American defence. These doctrines, the quintessence of common sense, had been absorbed as matters of course by a man who was the personification of that quality. Moreover, Washington was learning more and more about men. He had shown that he could discharge the business of an army with justice, diligence and excellent judgment. His absolute integrity had been demonstrated again and again; his singleminded devotion to his task had been exemplified in his refusal to leave the camps for any personal reason during the whole of the siege; the dignity and dispatch with which he transacted business, and his courteous good humor in dealing with all comers created an aura.
Washington had fulfilled the highest expectations of his admirers and had exceeded by far anything that would have been anticipated by those who realized how vastly out of scale with his experience as a Colonel were his responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief. He had not gained this esteem by genius, in the sense of specialized ability incomparably greater than that of the average man. He had won this place by the balance of his parts. In nothing transcendent, he was credited with possessing in ample measure every quality of character that administration of the Army demanded. Already he had become a moral rallying-post, the embodiment of the purpose, patience and determination necessary for triumph of the revolutionary cause.
Nowhere was there a hint by Washington that he had surprised himself by his accomplishments in front of Boston. He wrote and acted as if he had been schooled and prepared for the victory that had been won, and he was proud of his achievements and of the applause they had drawn. A few days after the British mastheads disappeared over the horizon, he wrote John Augustine:
I believe I may with great truth affirm that no man perhaps since the first institution of armies ever commanded one under more difficult circumstances, than I have done. To enumerate the particulars would fill a volume. . . . I am happy, however, to find and to hear from different quarters that my reputation stands fair, that my conduct hitherto has given universal satisfaction. The addresses which I have received, and which I suppose will be published, from the General Court of the Colony—the same as our General Assembly—and from the selectmen of Boston upon the evacuation of the town and my approaching departure from the Colony, exhibits a pleasing testimony of their approbation of my conduct and of their personal regard, which I have found in various other instances, and which, in retirement, will afford many comfortable reflections.
In this spirit, on April 4, he left Boston for New York, a prouder man by far, and more self-confident, than when he had arrived nine months previously to undertake his first campaign. He had won; he believed he could do it again.
